CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“My name is Rider Marinos. You fucked my sister. Prepare to die…” - The Prez

 

The irony of what he was doing didn’t side-step Hawk that night when he climbed off his Harley and pulled on his skull adorned leather gloves. The leather was old and worn in places but fit his fingers like a second skin with enough grip to control his bike gears and to have enough traction that when he choked a motherfucker that same motherfucker couldn’t slip through his hands.

Zipping his coat to the chin, he steepled his fingers together making sure the gloves were on good and tight as he waited for Lawless to do the same.

His brother in arms pulled on a black skull cap and rolled his neck.

They hadn’t talked much since their fight, but that wasn’t unusual, Hawk wasn’t a talker.

And they had a job to do.

He’d gone from fucking Gia on all fours just hours ago on her home office floor, making her tell him all kinds of dirty things from her good-girl mouth while he pounded orgasms out of her, to now, walking towards violence.

After bringing dinner knowing she’d had a long day already with her online clients whining their little fucking heads off, she’d been sweet and addicting and he’d walked out of her house on a fucking high, climbed on his bike and met up with Lawless to do what they did best together; murdering.

The streets were dark and eerily quiet and not two blocks away the unmarked SUV the club used for moving bodies would be parked already with the prospect behind the wheel waiting for his signal to collect their damage.

Being a prospect wasn’t an easy job, he knew that more than most. His first year when Rider had brought him into the Renegade Souls, with Rex still being their president, he’d done a lot of back breaking grunt work, shit no decent man would be able to live with himself afterwards. Good thing for Hawk since he had no fucking soul. These types of nights sorted out the men from the boys.

Tensions heightened when Hawk prowled into church earlier that day. Work was called to a standstill around lunch time and the core brothers were summoned to their closed-door meeting room.

“What’s going on that you had to interrupt my fucking romantic shower?” Bitched Snake as he followed Hawk in smelling like he’d dunked himself in a vat of shower gel. He took the seat across the table from Hawk’s VP chair.

“The fuck is a romantic shower?” Asked Arson. “On second thoughts, don’t wanna know.”

Snake smirked and made a jerking motion in the air with his hand.

Sitting on Rider’s side Hawk already knew what the meeting was about since he’d talked to him earlier. So, he sat silently and thought all kinds of soiled things he was gonna do to his little bit later. God, he loved her screams of enjoyment.

“We have the bratva underboss swinging by tonight.” Rider announced, and voices arose around the table asking what the fuck and similar protests. Waiting for the brothers to shut their traps Rider went on. “While I’m letting him kiss my ass, our resident evils will be picking off two of his men. The pigs will be fed well tonight and all before Grigori leaves Renegade Souls turf. And while he’s scrambling to find out what the fuck happened, we’ll do the same tomorrow tonight and the night after. Steele is gonna do the same with his crew.”

“Grigori is gonna look to us for it, how’s that gonna help?”

Rider smirked his cocksure grin and arched a brow, Hawk noticed and knew his friend was confident in their plan otherwise he wouldn’t be going through with it. “Gotta prove it first. We were all here entertaining his Russian ass with Vodka and blunts. Musta been the Mexicans, we know they hate the Russians for what happened two decades ago.”

The boys cackled.

Hawk just wanted to put the hurt on them. They were gonna pay for their fucking mistake.

“You gonna talk at all, or we still having a lover’s spat?” Asked Lawless in his rusted tone. Keeping his eyes ahead and his steps steady the pair of them headed towards a strip club not far. When he thought about it, sex and murder were not far apart.

Both emotions were out of control.

But if he had to pick one or the other right then he’d rather be at home spooned around Gia’s sated body.

Jesus fuck. He really was gone over her.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“I’ve been told a time or five,” chuckled the outlaw who was most like himself, unoffended. But then nothing much rattled Lawless’ cage. A demon didn’t get scared he just got even. “So, have we made up?”

“Sure. Keep the fuck outta my head, Law.”

“Can’t I just want you to be fucking happy?” He asked, making Hawk’s neck crane around to see those deep eyes, shrewd like a ghost, staring at him. The look sent chills down his spine. Creepy bastard. Hawk shrugged and ignored his claim, because he only got touchy-feely with emotions for Gia. “Let’s get this done, you, weird fuck.”

Lawless appeared to be content with Hawk’s response because he smirked, and shoulder checked him before they rounded the corner into an alleyway where down on the far end a couple were hooking up with loud flair.

“Show time.” Murmured Lawless pulling out a thick clear bag from his pocket.

The woman pinned to the wall for all intent and purposes appeared to be having a fuck of a time. Hawk couldn’t care less one way or another who was digging into her pussy. She was a nothing as far as he was concerned. Most people landed in the nothing to him.

If that made him a sociopath, he was fine with that.

It was only when Lawless emitted a low whistle that the chick suddenly dropped her legs and pushed out from the heavy-set guy who spun around to find two grinning dickheads.

Maybe Hawk wasn’t so good with reading facial expressions or body language, but this Russian was because he blanched and tried to use the bitch as a shield.

It was too late though. Hawk had already sprung forward to grab him from behind, anchoring both the guys arms as far back as those fat limbs could stretch and he used one of his own legs to coil around the Russian’s leg while the man spat out curses and threats in his mother tongue.

Hawk grinned and held tight.

Lawless handed over a roll of notes to the chick who cocked a hip and fingered Lawless’ jacket. “Thanks, babe. I’ll see you this week?”

“You might. Now run along.” He dismissed. They waited until she was out of sight before Law whipped that clear bag, industrial thick, no biting through it, over the Russian’s head.

Safe to say the fucker fought for his life, but with two murdering shitheads working in tandem to stop the guy breathing it was a no brainer who won.

When the heavy weight of the Russian underling, went out from under him, his face mottled, eyes bloodshot and spit dribbling out of his mouth, Lawless was the first to move, removing the bag, he made a quick call and not two minutes later Slider strutted around the corner leaving the rig at the end of the alleyway.

“Jesus, he’s a fat one. The hell are they feeding ‘em in Russia? I thought it was all bread and vodka?”

“Hand me the cling wrap.” It wasn’t Lawless’ first time wrapping up a corpse for easy transfer from one scene to another. Hawk worked from the feet up and Law from the head down and they met in the middle, handing off the thick roll to Slider who tucked it away in his backpack. Next came the duct tape.

“Grab his feet, kid. Me and the VP will get the heavy end.”

It took three of them to move the dead mobster to their truck and toss him into the bed under the tarp with his former team mate who suffered the same fate just an hour previously. That one was even easier having found him gambling in one of RS’s own card games at the back of an Italian restaurant. They’d only needed to wait for him to stagger drunk outside to take a piss when they’d jumped him.

Both murders, too easy, hadn’t even spiked Hawk’s juices.

As he climbed into the passenger seat, Slider in the driver’s side and Lawless chose the back, he recounted back on that irony. Two sides to the same evening and both couldn’t be more polar apart.

This was his life. Nothing was gonna change with that. He did what he did not because he enjoyed it. Okay, maybe a little. But the routine and danger of their MC meant that tonight’s excursion was not the first or gonna be the last time and now he was straddling a new line with Gia and his brain was having a hard-fucking time keeping up.

It went without saying he didn’t want her to know what he was, she’d run for the hills and his addiction was finally being sated and no bastard, crazy, insane or monster would give that back when they had the taste of perfection on his tongue.

He needed to decide.

Couldn’t keep doing the same push and pull bullshit over and over and expecting Gia to go along with him. As she’d told him with her finger wagging in his face she could make her own decisions and she’d punch him in the balls if he ever tried to do something for her own good again. He believed it too. Feisty and beautiful and he wanted her with a madness chewing at his guts.

He either manned the fuck up and did what his woman needed from him or he sat down and let someone worthier of her take over.

And he’d let another man do his job over his dead, rotten corpse.

His phone buzzed, and he fished it out of his pocket. A smirk etched up his lips all on its own.

 

Gia: I missed you in bed. See you later?

 

She included a swarm of affectionate emojis as always.

He was gonna have a coronary through his hard dick right there in the truck with his boys watching on. But he couldn’t stop his thumbs from moving on the screen.

 

Hawk: Yeah, my little bit. Soon.

 

She’d had no clue where he’d gone to tonight and if it were up to him he wouldn’t be telling her any time soon. His first job; protect his old lady.

The thumping in his chest increased.

His old lady.

There was a direct rousing just beneath her skin, a power-driven crackle of awareness and acceptance of knowing whatever happened in the next few hours he wanted one thing and only one thing.

Decision fucking made.

It was the reason he hung around the club after they’d dumped the bodies off with the pigs up at the pen they kept high in the mountains. Those things ate everything from bones to innards, no trace of Russians would be left behind.

He took a shower to wash off the smell of death, it was closing on dawn by the time he was done, and he had another hour or so before Rider arrived for the day.

“Law said it went well.” His prez remarked when he first strode through the doors, closely followed by his old lady carrying the baby strapped to her chest. The pair kissed, Hawk averted his eyes, and he replied only when Rider’s girl had taken off down to the kitchen.

He didn’t get the sick belly roiling he once did in front of her, but he wasn’t altogether comfortable with her either.

Hawk nodded and fell in to step with Rider.

“Steele said the same. Had a call from Axel late last night.” The President of the smaller MC operation The Diablo Disciples. Not really foe but neither friend either. Rider used them only if and when, but a few months previous Axel contacted the club to put Rider in the picture about a possible snitch somewhere along the chain of command in his club because the ATF were crawling up their asses over petty shit. The RS operated on a whole other frequency to most MC’s.

No one liked the Diablo leader much. The Butcher didn’t, that was a fact seeing on how Tad poked at Axel’s barely legal baby girl and found himself beat to fuck over it a few years back. Getting with someone from another MC wasn’t the best fucking idea.

Tensions between the clubs ever since had been rough, but Diablo’s were the tiny fish in RS’s big pond and wouldn’t dare step the fuck on Rider’s toes.

“What did the windbag want this time?”

“Two more of his guys got pulled in over the weekend for blow.”

“My heart bleeds,” sarcasm dripped from Hawk’s mouth.

The ruthless morning sun nearly blinded when they turned a corner and headed into Rider’s office. Hawk shuffled across to the window and pulled the blind down until his retinas returned to normal. “If he’s got a fox in his hen house that’s on him for being a shit prez. But I’m getting what you’re not saying, Ri. You think we gotta keep a closer eye on what we do.”

The bunkers up in the mountains was a thriving business for the downright shady. For a price anything could be hidden down there. It would take one police raid and they’d all do time in the big house.

Rider hmmed and plonked himself in a chair. “We’ll sort this Russian invasion out first, then we’ll see what’s happenin’ with the ATP. Grinder’s contacts in the police have nothing so far, no one is looking at us more than they usually are. Not really bothered about them taking the Diablo’s down, but if they sing like sopranos it just means they’ll be looking at us.”

After a minute went by Hawk chose his moment. “Look. I know it’s shit timing, with Rex and the bratva, but I wanted to talk to you about something. Tell you something, really.”

Rider cocked his head back. Astute, always had been even when they were more than just boys with no chest hair.

Hawk remembered clearly the night he met Rider, how he’d taken Hawk, who’d been living rough for two years at that point, to get some fast food and offered him a bed and then weeks later an opportunity to prospect for the club. Seemed a life time ago and yet only yesterday. Rider was the one Hawk trusted first so it seemed like a kick in the fucking guts to feel like he was betraying that friendship.

“The way you’re stalling makes me fuckin’ edgy, man. Out with it so I can go grab breakfast with my girls.”

Hawk shifted on his thick, buckled boots and fisted his hands down into the front pockets of his jeans. Rider hadn’t questioned why suddenly Hawk was sporting a new tidier beard and hair, or why he disappeared all hours of the day and night or why he wasn’t sticking around for the parties. They weren’t the kinda friends who talked vanity or even gossiped. When they spoke, it was about shit that mattered, usually about the club so it probably never occurred to his friend a woman was involved.

“I’m seeing Gia.” He said. Eyes never wavering from Rider’s blues.

After a beat. “Okay?” Rider answered slowly, not getting it. Maybe he assumed as his shrink. Wouldn’t that be a barrel of laughs.

Hawk rounded his shoulders and inhaled hard enough to suck up crumbs from the floor. “I’m seeing her, Rider. I suppose she’d call it dating—”

He got no further. Rider jumped to his feet like he’d been fired up the ass with a ten-foot pole. His face no longer blank, he resembled thunder chewing on a wasp. “Is this a fuckin’ joke, Hawk? You better be fuckin’ pullin’ my goddamn third leg right the fuck now.”

“Nope. Not a joke. And before you think about putting me through the wall, which I’d stop you doing, by the way,” Rider growled at him. “Let me just put it all out there and be fucking honest with you, right?”

“Honest? Fuckin’ honest! What the fuck is this shit, Hawk? You’re seeing my sister? Since the fuck when?”

Hawk rolled a hand over the back of his neck. Did he tell the real truth and say he’d been seeing her for ten years, only no one knew then or the other real truth and admit it had been a few weeks already?

He went all in, giving the condensed version of wanting her when she was more than a baby, but they’d only gotten together these past weeks. Might as well be slaughtered for a sheep as a fucking psycho.

Hawk had never said so many fucking words all at once before. His tongue was in shock.

Twenty years he’d known the man in front of him. The same man rounding the wide oak desk with eyes raging fire at him, hissing from clenched teeth Hawk felt he didn’t know Rider at all. Yet had wholly expected the reaction.

Who the fuck would be happy he was dating their sibling?

He’d tried to tell Gia this was a bad idea, hadn’t he? He was bad news for everyone.

It was almost comical to pin point Rider’s reaction down to the last inch. And because the men were so in sync with each other’s idiosyncrasies he could presume Rider was counting down in his head to stop from reaching out and knocking Hawk’s face off.

“She wants me, who the fuck knows why. I tried to stop it. I tried for ten fucking years, Ri. A whole fucking decade, I tried not to want her for many fucking fucked up reasons that doesn’t stand now. She won’t let me push her away and I don’t want to anymore.”

With his arms folded Rider approached putting the two men on the same height level. Hawk wasn’t fooled into assuming he was relaxed. He might be a dumb fuck, but he recognized anger.

“All the chicks with more than willing pussies we get through those fucking doors and you latch onto my sister…” Rider said, teeth clenched. “You’re fuckin’ my sister and only just telling me this shit now? I had you watching her to keep her safe!”

Hawk felt his belly get hot. He didn’t like the way he was talking about Gia that way. “If that’s the way you wanna put it.”

Rider burst with anger. “What fuckin’ other way is there to put it, you dick! My goddamn sister. You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding. This shit, whatever fuckin’ fantasy you got goin’ on stops now, you fuckin’ hearin’ me? It stops now.”

Like hell it does.

“You don’t get to decide, brother. I was giving you the courtesy of letting you know what’s happening with us.”

That only made Rider angrier.

Shoulder checking him, Rider threw open the door and yelled for Zara who appeared out of the kitchen still clutching that kid of theirs.

“What on earth…” she asked, looking between them as Hawk followed at a slower pace with hands shoved into his back pockets.

“Call Gia and tell her to get her ass here right now,” Rider issued to his old lady then fired Hawk a look dark enough to peel the skin off his bones. “If you’ve got any fuckin’ sense left in that brain of yours you’ll stay the fuck out of my way for a minute.”

“Brother…”

Rider halted, turned on his heel, and pointed a finger. “Thin fuckin’ ice right now. You wanna keep your fuckin’ patch keep your goddamn brother to yourself.” And with Zara trailing behind as Rider plucked the kid from her and tucked her into his chest the pair left him there standing by the bar, eyeballs on him from everywhere.

A thick banded chain lodged around Hawk’s throat.

He recognized it as guilt.

Shame.

Sick.

Depraved.

Evil.

The words swirled like mist around his eyes.

“What’s crawled up my nephew’s ass, son?” Asked Jed behind him.

Without turning Hawk pulled out his phone to do his own calling, he could at least give Gia fair warning. “Nothing much. He just found out I’m dating Gia.”

Seeing as Jed was also Gia’s uncle too, Hawk figured he’d be in for another lecture, but the old weathered man threw back his gray spiked head and cracked knuckles on the bar top. “’bout damn time. I’ll make coffee while we wait for Rider to cool off.”